Pears
by Angelic Guardian
Summary: Nick and Jess go grocery shopping and argue about produce. Oneshot.


**Author's Note:** Here's another Nick/Jess fic, this time just a quick little scene. Hope you enjoy. :)

 **Disclaimer:** New Girl © Elizabeth Meriwether

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With the sun shining on a warm fall afternoon, Jess had spent her Sunday being productive and running errands, culminating in dragging a perpetually grouchy Nick to the grocery store.

He'd protested, of course, insisting he wanted to enjoy his day off the way any self-respecting, hardworking man should, by watching football and drinking beer. Jess had countered that he was neither hardworking nor self-respecting, and besides, she had no one else to go with her, since Winston was at the barber shop, and Schmidt was at the nail salon getting his cuticles professionally trimmed.

And so, here they were.

"Let's see, what's next?" Jess said, looking over the shopping list she'd written on a pretty piece of paper from a unicorn stationery set she'd borrowed from one of her students and had conveniently forgotten to return to her. "Two percent milk."

Nick scoffed, pushing the shopping cart. "Two percent. I don't understand the point of having all these different varieties of milk. It should be whole milk or fat-free, that's it. We don't need any of this skim or soy or, worst of all, _almond_ milk crap."

"Don't be such a hater. Almond milk is delicious," Jess said as she placed a gallon of two percent milk in their cart.

"It is not. It literally tastes like almonds. Who wants to actually _drink_ almonds? If I want almonds, I'll eat them, not drink them like it's juice and pretend it's from a cow," Nick said, scrunching up his face, as if he could taste the revolting beverage on his tongue.

Jess couldn't help but grin when she saw the pouty look on his face. He looked like a little kid who'd just been tricked into eating a healthy serving of broccoli.

"I never realized you were so passionate about milk, Miller."

"Oh, not just milk. All dairy products," Nick said. "I once got into a full-blown argument with Schmidt over the best type of cheese to put into an omelette."

Jess pursed her lips, pondering it herself for a moment, only to draw up her guess as she said, "Cheddar?"

"Yes, exactly!" Nick said, practically bursting with relief. "Finally someone else who gets it. Schmidt says pepper jack. Can you believe that? Where does he think we are, a fancy French bistro?"

"Is that why Schmidt always stares daggers at you whenever you use the cheese grater?" Jess asked.

"I'd honestly rather not talk about it anymore," Nick said. "It's a sensitive topic."

Jess cracked another grin, amused by how serious he was about it, but she conceded in ending the conversation and simply turned her attention back to the shopping list.

"Last up, fruit," she said. "Apples and berries and pears, oh my!"

"Did you seriously just make a _Wizard of Oz_ reference?" Nick asked, cocking an eyebrow, his tone nothing short of disapproving.

Jess only stuck her tongue out at him and winked, refusing to let his cynicism ruin one of her all-time favorite iconic movies, next to _Dirty Dancing,_ of course.

"Don't make fun of me, Nick. You know you love that movie as much as I do," she said. "Or are you still upset because I compared you to the Tin Man?"

"For the millionth time, I have a heart, Jess!" Nick said, as hysterical as he was when they'd had this argument months ago while sitting together on the couch watching the movie late one night. "I already told you, Schmidt's the Tin Man, Winston's the Cowardly Lion, and I'm the Scarecrow because, to the naked eye, I may seem dumb, but I actually prove myself to be one crafty son of a bitch."

"I'm not having this argument again," Jess said, and with that, she tore off a plastic bag from the produce section and stopped in front of the display of Red Delicious apples. She grabbed one from the pile, twirled it around in her hand to check for bruises, squeezed it for firmness and, finally satisfied with her selection, placed it in the bag and proceeded to search for another one.

Out of nowhere, though, she paused, feeling Nick's eyes on her. She turned to see him simply standing there, leaning his elbows against the cart as he watched her. Knowing he was staring at her as she picked out fruit made her feel self-conscious for reasons she couldn't quite comprehend, and he seemed to sense her discomfort as he asked, with rare gentleness, "What?"

She stared at him a moment and blinked, only to turn away, her face growing warm. "Nothing," she said softly, and she cleared her throat. "Why don't you go pick out some bananas and avocados, and we'll meet over by the melons."

"That was a strangely erotic sentence," Nick said, but he obeyed, wheeling away the shopping cart over to the bananas.

Jess watched him leave, finding herself focusing on his shoulder blades, for some reason. They looked particularly appealing beneath the blue flannel shirt he was wearing. Abruptly, she shook her head and returned to picking out the apples. After selecting half a dozen, she tied the bag into a knot and headed over to the tomatoes.

A smile graced her face as she recalled the day she'd first learned tomatoes were, in fact, a fruit, and not a vegetable as many people believed. Eleven years old, shopping with her mom. Her jaw had dropped, similar to when she'd found out the tooth fairy wasn't real, only slightly less intense.

She plucked four tomatoes, bound together by a sturdy green vine, and placed them in a plastic bag, tying it as well. Her eyes took one last glance at the shopping list to see if there was anything she missed. Pears. Conveniently, they were located next to the melons.

 _Melons. Real mature, Miller,_ Jess thought with a playful rolling of her eyes as she headed for the pears. As soon as she reached for one, however, Nick's voice cut in.

"Why are you getting pears? They're disgusting."

Jess turned to see him approaching her with the additional items in their cart, only to wrinkle her brows as something caught her eye. Placing her own items in the cart, she lifted the bag of avocados. "Nick. Why'd you get _eight_ avocados?"

"Is that too many?" he asked, genuinely clueless, which didn't surprise her in the least.

"Not unless we're opening a guacamole factory," Jess said as she attempted to untie the tight knot Nick had made, all to no avail. After half a minute of struggling, Nick finally took the bag from her and ripped it open. She watched him take out a few avocados and dump them near the oranges. It was anarchy, although she didn't bother to comment on it, instead saying, "Pears aren't disgusting, by the way. They may be terrifying, but they're not disgusting."

"Yes, they are. They're like flavorless apples," Nick said, re-tying the bag. "Speaking of, what's with this?" He held up the bag of red apples. "You don't think this is an obnoxious amount of apples?"

"I'm baking a pie!" Jess said defensively.

"Oh, well, excuse me," Nick said, carelessly dropping the bag back into the cart.

"Nick!" Jess said with a spark of ire, an emotion only he managed to ignite in her. "How dare you treat the apples like that! I carefully hand-picked those!"

"Geez, relax, they're fine," Nick said. "And even if they did get a little dented, so what? They're still edible."

"That's not the point," Jess said. "You've got to handle your produce more delicately." She picked up a pear, only to jump when Nick's hand enclosed over the top of it and yanked it right out of her hand by the stem. "Nick! Give that back!"

"Nobody likes pears, Jess! NOBODY!"

 _"I_ like pears!"

"Fine, then eat your damn pears, and bake your damn pie with your perfect, non-dented apples!"

"I will! I'll bake a mindblowing apple pie, and you won't be allowed to eat it!"

"Yeah, well, guess what? I don't even _want_ your pie!"

"Good! 'Cause you're not getting my pie!"

They both stopped, allowing the implications of what they'd said to settle in for the both of them. Jess blinked a few times, feeling utterly lost as to what to say now. She felt her shoulders relax as the raging heat in her cheeks gradually cooled down.

Meanwhile, she looked around to see that she and Nick had managed to draw a small crowd of onlookers: an elderly couple, a mother with her young daughter, a group of adolescent boys in soccer uniforms, a tall guy with glasses.

Jess straightened herself up in an attempt to squash the wave of embarrassment swelling within her.

"We're rehearsing a play," she said, but before she could come up with a name for it, Nick intervened.

"No, you can't keep making that excuse every single time we get into a heated argument in public," he said, and he turned to the crowd, waving his hands, still clutching the pear. "Nothing to see here, folks. Thanks for your concern, though. Go ahead and resume your shopping. There's a sale on nonfat Greek yogurt, if you're into that."

It took a few seconds of uneasy, confused silence for the crowd to disperse, but they finally did. Afterward, Nick pressed his lips together as he relinquished the pear to Jess, who smiled in appreciation.

"Think of it this way," she said as she dropped the pear into a bag and picked up another one, "we may have made complete fools of ourselves just now, but at least it'll be a funny story to tell our grandkids someday."

 _"Our_ grandkids?" Nick said, the joyful surprise evident in his voice.

Jess, however, froze up as the realization of what she said hit her hard. Nick grinned at her with genuine warmth, but that still didn't stop her from shriveling like a raisin and attempting to correct her blunder.

"I meant—not _our_ grandkids. Other people's grandkids," she said, but it was hopeless, as the smile on Nick's face only grew wider. Frustrated with herself, she stormed past him, pears in hand. "I'm going to the checkout."

A delighted Nick followed.


End file.
